Where do we go from here with the Wally West of the new 52 ?

[Ascended]

So why doesn't DC instead of race pretzeling introduce characters in existing books with favored characters (Batman, anyone?) give them something more awesome to do for a few issues beyond standing on the sidelines....and maybe that character will stand a chance of gaining a decently sized fan base.

Its a good idea, and it happens already. We've had characters like Steel and the aforementioned Others brought in on the shoulders of more popular and established properties, and both of these examples have gone on to have their own titles and Steel became a member of the League, and for a little while was gaining some traction among the wider DCU (that fell apart, but still). Vibe and Katana got spun out of the JLA title. So it does happen, and sometimes it even works long term, though it seems that characters like this have a hard time establishing themselves away from whatever franchise they came from.

The only thing Im saying is that the race changing is another option. There doesnt seem to be a single solution that works. New characters struggle, supporting cast members brought into their own struggle, legacies who have replaced someone struggle unless that legacy has been dead for decades (such as with Mr. Terrific). I totally support new characters and supporting cast members getting to step up (hell, thats exactly what Wally did originally!). But the race changing thing, while its problematic, is another way to push representation and in my opinion, every effort should be made to that end. And as long as race never mattered to the character, and that character is still written and treated the same way they originally were, I dont see the big deal. In some cases, it doesnt fit. Batman for example, has to be white; his family was old money two hundred years ago when Gotham was built, and back then only white people had that kind of wealth in America. In order to maintain that sense of old money, Bruce has to be a WASP. John Stewart has to be black; he was designed and built off the (unfortunate) blackspoltation era. It's a big part of who he is. But for most characters, it's a non-issue. Its not like being white ever played a major role for Superman, so as long as the primary visuals (cape, shield, spit curl, ect) are there, who gives a damn about skin tone?

In Wally's case, he hasnt been written or treated well. That's the problem, not the color of his skin. And fortunately, the way he's written can always change.

[Buried Alien]

Joe has been the break-out character of the show, I'll have to agree. If the comics absorbed one thing from the show, i wish it was him.

It's a close run among Joe, Cisco, and Dr. Wells. These three characters are very compelling and almost steal the show from Barry/the Flash.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Ascended]

I don't think Wally being written well or bad has any impact on the sales of the Flash book. The only thing that effects the Flash book is how well Flash is written.

That may very well be. Im not aware of any kind of hard data to say one way or another. Im just guessing, and perhaps letting my own pro-Wally bias color my judgement. Wally was extremely popular at one point, and his fans are still around, and we still miss seeing him. I know that personally, if Wally were written and treated well, I'd be more willing to accept otherwise lackluster writing in a Flash comic. But again, thats just me.

[BohemiaDrinker]

It's a close run among Joe, Cisco, and Dr. Wells. These three characters are very compelling and almost steal the show from Barry/the Flash.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Wells is also, in my view, the best Reverse Flash we've got so far. But Reverse Flash will always be Reverse Flash, one way or another.

Joe, OTOH, is the one character that could take the horrible "dead mother" twist and turn into something interesting. Without him, it just seems wrong for the Flash. With him, the Wests and the Allens suddenly become the base for the Flash clan, together.

Also, the actor (Jesse Martin? His name escapes me) just dominates every scene he's in.

[Sirzechs]

Yeah Jesse Martin, his great even back when he was in Law & Order.

[Kyer]

Batman for example, has to be white; his family was old money two hundred years ago when Gotham was built, and back then only white people had that kind of wealth in America. In order to maintain that sense of old money, Bruce has to be a WASP. John Stewart has to be black; he was designed and built off the (unfortunate) blackspoltation era. It's a big part of who he is. But for most characters, it's a non-issue. Its not like being white ever played a major role for Superman, so as long as the primary visuals (cape, shield, spit curl, ect) are there, who gives a damn about skin tone?

I'd agree there if it weren't for the fact that this is the...scratch that....a comics world and I don't know if WASP holds true in it. Probably in the Silver Age and before, but still?
(It still gets me that post 1970's even with Martin Luther King and Star Trek stories--the whole, incredibly stupid OMG KIRK KISSED UHURA! blather--that racism is still an active word. I swear as a species we are idiotic. Thought this would be well and truly over before I was old enough to to be considered a full adult.)

Reading that Vixen was a millionairess would not have had me batting an eye. The 'president could have been an alien in a skirt and my reaction would of been "Well, Hal's bosses are little blue guys and a gal. It's comics." As in...not the real world of the time.

[Ascended]

I'd agree there if it weren't for the fact that this is the...scratch that....a comics world and I don't know if WASP holds true in it. Probably in the Silver Age and before, but still?
(It still gets me that post 1970's even with Martin Luther King and Star Trek stories--the whole, incredibly stupid OMG KIRK KISSED UHURA! blather--that racism is still an active word. I swear as a species we are idiotic. Thought this would be well and truly over before I was old enough to to be considered a full adult.)

Reading that Vixen was a millionairess would not have had me batting an eye. The 'president could have been an alien in a skirt and my reaction would of been "Well, Hal's bosses are little blue guys and a gal. It's comics." As in...not the real world of the time.

Dude, I hear ya. I thought when Obama won his first election that racism was on its last legs. And I still think we are, as a culture, taking great strides in the right direction, but it baffles me that there are still people out there who buy into that crap. And yes, as a species we are absolutely all morons.

As for the WASP thing, I dont think it *has* to hold true, and Im not a big fan of comics trying overly hard to maintain a sense of realism. But unless they're going to drastically re-write some aspects of history (mostly slavery, and I think it'd be insulting to pretend that horror never happened), then Bruce's family being WASP's is sort of a must. Now, they could always say that the family has, over generations, intermingled and become multi-racial or predominantly Latino or whatever, and Bruce therefore wouldnt be white at all. But from a thematic point of view, if you want Bruce Wayne to really sell that "spoiled old, old money billionaire playboy" thing, being as WASP certainly helps sell it. Its not the "rich" thing, its the "old money" thing.

Or you could just say that the Wayne family wasnt filthy rich old money over two hundred years ago and the whole thing becomes a non-issue. If you told me that Bruce's great-(great?)-grandparents made the family fortune *only* a hundred years ago, and they also happened to be non-white, whatever. It's mostly just the idea that Gotham is nearly as old as the nation itself and the Waynes built it on their own dime.

[Blacksun]

But that isn't what they are doing. They are only changing the race of side characters or supporting characters who have no impact on the sales of the book. They aren't changing their marquee characters, which is why I find the whole process incredibly cheap. You and I both know that if this new black 12 year old Wally was a new character or not the Flash book would be selling exactly the same. Same with the Grayson title. No one is reading that book for the New 52 Helena Bertinelli.

I mean I agree that is is incredibly hard to sell comics regardless of what race or gender the character is. Very few comics can sell over 30K to 40K consistently and they are the comics with the strong IPs and top of the line creators on them. I think the only way to fix this problem is to use the minority characters they have and don't abandon them. Just consistently use them. Keep them relevant. Don't have a Cassandra Cain be the new Batgirl for years then replace her with a white character(Steph) and stick her in limbo for years. Don't suddenly introduce two new minority Green Lanterns no one has any connection with then plan to kill off John Stewart. Don't stick Cyborg in the Justice League then have him be ineffectual and isolated. Don't use Vibe and revamp his character only to stick him back in limbo after his book ends. Just use these characters and build them up and support them.

it's cheap and doesn't help representation. Like Flash is blond with blue eyes, superman white, batman white, aquaman, the green lantern on JL.

Helena bertinelly I didn't cared too much she was turned into a POC character. She is mostly well written, but also has more bertinelli on the name than her personality/story;

people doesn't care for side characters, specially when they are completely different from what they knew

[The_Greatest_Username]

It's a close run among Joe, Cisco, and Dr. Wells. These three characters are very compelling and almost steal the show from Barry/the Flash.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Caitlin is my favorite and I'm anxious to see if they turn her into a life stealing villainess. Maybe they could just use Louise Lincoln instead.

[BohemiaDrinker]

Dude, I hear ya. I thought when Obama won his first election that racism was on its last legs. And I still think we are, as a culture, taking great strides in the right direction, but it baffles me that there are still people out there who buy into that crap. And yes, as a species we are absolutely all morons.

As for the WASP thing, I dont think it *has* to hold true, and Im not a big fan of comics trying overly hard to maintain a sense of realism. But unless they're going to drastically re-write some aspects of history (mostly slavery, and I think it'd be insulting to pretend that horror never happened), then Bruce's family being WASP's is sort of a must. Now, they could always say that the family has, over generations, intermingled and become multi-racial or predominantly Latino or whatever, and Bruce therefore wouldnt be white at all. But from a thematic point of view, if you want Bruce Wayne to really sell that "spoiled old, old money billionaire playboy" thing, being as WASP certainly helps sell it. Its not the "rich" thing, its the "old money" thing.

Or you could just say that the Wayne family wasnt filthy rich old money over two hundred years ago and the whole thing becomes a non-issue. If you told me that Bruce's great-(great?)-grandparents made the family fortune *only* a hundred years ago, and they also happened to be non-white, whatever. It's mostly just the idea that Gotham is nearly as old as the nation itself and the Waynes built it on their own dime.

Well, as of right now, to make Batman bi-racial - or black, if we go for appearance rather than ethnicity - all he needs is one black parent (his mother I guess). So, it's not really far fetched.

[Blacksun]

Well, as of right now, to make Batman bi-racial - or black, if we go for appearance rather than ethnicity - all he needs is one black parent (his mother I guess). So, it's not really far fetched.

yes, a latino/asian/black mother is all possible

[Triple J]

it's cheap and doesn't help representation. Like Flash is blond with blue eyes, superman white, batman white, aquaman, the green lantern on JL.

Helena bertinelly I didn't cared too much she was turned into a POC character. She is mostly well written, but also has more bertinelli on the name than her personality/story;

people doesn't care for side characters, specially when they are completely different from what they knew

My king doesn't adhere to any human categorizations.

[K. Jones]

Well, as of right now, to make Batman bi-racial - or black, if we go for appearance rather than ethnicity - all he needs is one black parent (his mother I guess). So, it's not really far fetched.

I mean, Bruce Wayne is a WASP but as a man whose family has been in America since Revolutionary times, he's not some pure racist ideal of "whiteness". We know that he's got Scottish, English, and Native-American roots. And he's got a biracial son with an Arabic and probably French woman (BTW, nice touch Morrison, making Talia's mom French syncs up pretty nicely with Marion Cottilard's casting). And those are just the branches we know of.

Anyway ... Batmanology distraction. I was going to say "10 pages, wowsers."

I'm not a big fan of racelifting and often cite Denys Cowan's thoughts on the subject, though I can see the logic of one of the first-page-ish remarks about waiting for Wally to "take off" as a character on CW's Flash before doing the comic book pallet swap. But I was never against adding to Wally, what I don't like is things being subtracted from him. First his book, then his continuity, which as a nerd outrages me, of course, but then his identity, essentially. I'm one of the original dudes who thought that if NuWally had been more of a Helena Bertinelli situation, less people would be so affronted. If he was still a befreckled ginger, and they merely increased his skintone from "lily white" to "hey, you have a neat tint." From Amy Poehler to Rashida Jones, ostensibly, in skintone. Because I don't care if they make one of his parents, presumably his mom, right, a person of color. Wally's mom was a nice lady in whatever media I've seen her in but she's not exactly the reason I'm showing up to read.

Anyway it's funny, topics always skew towards how Wally is black now, but he's still white. It can literally be fixed via artist interpretation (and hopefully it is, because seriously, I'm that shallow - if he resembles classic Wally to the point where only a marginal shift from pink skin to nutty brown skin, and from tomato red hair to a reddish-brown, I'll never complain about Wally West again.) There's also a tendency to ignore powerful beats like how by erasing his continuity and him not being a contemporary with say, Dick Grayson and Roy ... they're basically sandbagging the fact that he has two biracial kids.

But I do hope they don't use that Silver costume, am I right?

Elsewhen? It's important that Superman be a dark-haired whitish dude because it's important that he looks more or less like a Jewish immigrant in the 1940s. Which isn't to say I don't love reading black Superman stories, just that I don't want to see Siegel and Shuster's inspirational construct ... de-Jewished? I can't think of a better word. (I don't want to see Wally de-gingered, either, what with the whole self-identifying bit.) It's like how Judaism is kind of intrinsic and important to the character of Spock in Trek, right? Plus I'd sort of rather just read a good Steel story. MORE STEEL DAMMIT.

[Kyer]

Well, as of right now, to make Batman bi-racial - or black, if we go for appearance rather than ethnicity - all he needs is one black parent (his mother I guess). So, it's not really far fetched.

Or a native American. I can see a comic world where the Natives tribes merged with the Europeans and became these ultra-rich families...some doing good and some like the mafia.

[Dataweaver]

For me, the low-hanging fruit is Wonder Woman, who could easily be given a more brownish complexion, straight hair, and so on, and portrayed as being of Eastern European/Northeastern Mediterranean descent. It's ironic that in this age where people are talking so much about “race-lifting” as a means of adding diversity to comics, there are Wonder Woman supporters who are touting the fact that she doesn’t have Mediterranean/Eastern European features as evidence of racial diversity — specifically, as evidence that the Amazons are racially diverse.